Do you have what it takes to be a Fight Night warrior? Fight Night is back - for our 12th year - on 23 May 2019. 18 fearless channel contenders will once again immerse themselves into the brutal world of boxing to raise money for their chosen charities.

Change is coming, as Microsoft is introducing new and extended support and service requirements for direct sellers. These new conditions will come at considerable cost to some partners - financially and in both time and manpower.

Download now to understand how the Microsoft CSP changes will impact your organisation.

To grow, to remain relevant to the customers, and to remain profitable, IT channels (in all their forms) will have to master a number of business model transformations in the cloud and digital transformation era. Read more to learn about the key transformations that IT channels will need to address, in order to bring new capabilities to customers and be successful in the future.

Cloud was the main theme at the software vendor’s global conference, with a
range of initiatives launched including a cloud management strategy and its
Cloud Commons community web site.

“If you try to fight it, it is goodbye,” he said.

Carvalho said there are various ways for CA to work with partners over the
cloud and, in preparation, the vendor has changed the way its partner business
is organised, splitting partners into three categories: alliance; global service
providers and managed service partners/channel partners. Each category now has a
dedicated team of CA staff to provide support.

“A year ago if you looked at CA in Europe you would see that we treated
everyone the same way,” he said.

Tamar Brooks, UK and Ireland channel manager at CA, said: “The number of
traditional resel­lers that are now coming to us and asking how we can help take
them into the cloud has been significant.”

However, for those resellers that are keen to stick to a more traditional
licensing model, both Brooks and Carvalho said the vendor would support them
every way they can.

VAR Logicalis has been working closely with CA as it develops its own
dedicated cloud business.

Chris Gabriel, director of solutions at Logicalis, said: “We have invested
time and effort into our cloud business and it is paying dividends. Whatever it
is called, the cloud is coming whether the channel likes it or not.”